This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics,
C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

The case against assisted suicide

Does the legality of assisted suicide lead health insurance companies to push it and use it an excuse to deny payment for end of life care? That has always been my biggest worry about it.
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Apparently yes.

8 comments:

Vic, almost nothing in life scares me as much the thought of living in chronic, interminable pain for months, years, or decades while my family's resources are drained because of someone else's preposterous metaphysical beliefs.

I think the issue on assisted suicide is not so much as whether or not we should let it happen, but *when* it should happen. There need to be serious considerations made (I'm not sure where to begin) so that people aren't unreasonably quitting. Suicide is a terrible thing, and I'd like to think that no matter what I'd never give up like that but perhaps it is justified in cases where the patient is suffering so severely and so without hope that he might as well die then as opposed to a prolonged and grueling later time.

Just thinking about how awful it would be to hear someone decide that they're ready for death, and then likely saying something like "wait, I like it here, I think I'll stay for a little longer," and then change their minds again the next day makes me sad. I hate the idea that someone would want to be killed by another person, and by their own choice, rather than by the disease/injury that opposes them. It seems like a misplaced priority to me, like you'd have to loose hope to get to that point...after all, I can think of so many cases where people were in the worst of all possible situations and yet they fought to live, even if they ended up dying...that will to live should not go out--it would not go out if the patient still had something worth living for.

It's an undignifying outworking of depression, that is why I think assisted suicide is wrong. And having the option available makes people consider it when they would not have otherwise. You can object and say "but some people just hurt so, so badly," but I'm sorry: I know there are people who have gone through egregious trials and died while not once considering suicide. Now, it should be noted that I am not saying the commuter of suicide is an awful person, rather, I feel that the individual would never even consider it--and indeed would be more happy not considering/committing to it--if they maintained the understanding that life is to be cherished, if they would learn to not be depressed, if they could see that one should not die with the dignity of not committing to what their disease is exacting upon them, and if the option was not made available so that the idea would not come to mind.

It seems to me that there is something about liberalism or atheism or both that has made this acceptable.

some coward:"Vic, almost nothing in life scares me as much the thought of living in chronic, interminable pain for months, years, or decades while my family's resources are drained because of someone else's preposterous metaphysical beliefs."

My "preposterous metaphysical beliefs" do not stop you from murdering yourself; in fact, even now I encourage you to do so.

What my "preposterous metaphysical beliefs" aim to stop is your politicing to compel *me* to help you murder yourself, whether directly or indirectly (for example, via taxation), because you are too cowardly to do the deed yourself and too cowardly to do it without governmental approval.

VR:"Does the legality of assisted suicide lead health insurance companies to push it and use it an excuse to deny payment for end of life care? That has always been my biggest worry about it."

There is *always* a god of the system -- there are *always* someone's "preposterous metaphysical beliefs" delimiting what will and will not be permitted, what will and will not be done -- and that god *will* be served: life or death.

some troll: "IIion, do you intend to come across as a rude, overly confident generaliser, or is that just an unfortunate by product of who you are?"

The Astute Reader will have observed that persons of this sort never even attempt to show that and how I am wrong about something.

Instead, they hint that I am guilty of the only sin under post-modernism: I am "guilty" of admitting to certainty. Why! I have the "arrogance" to admit to believing that what I say is true. Oh, it's worse than that: I actually admit to believing that human beings can reason to truth, and worse, that *I* have reasoned to truth and then having done so, believe it to be true.

Notice: the "sin" isn't really certainty; the sin is in not pretending to be uncertain.

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About Me

I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.